Reply #17: From the founder of 'Campaign against sanctions and military intervention in Iran' (CASMII)

[oblivious]

Abbas Edalat is the founder of CASMII and Professor of Computer Science and Matheamtics at Imperial College London. He is interviewed by Oscar Dahlston for Felix the student newspaper of Imperial College London.

Felix: Iran's president Ahmadinejad is reported as having said that Israel should be 'wiped off the map' and organised a conference for holocaust-deniers. Is Israel right to feel an existential threat from Iran?

Abbas Edalat: It is a myth that Ahmadinejad has ever said that Israel should be “wiped off the map”. This myth was created first by a mistranslation of the statement Ahmadinejad made and later by its deliberate distortion. What he actually said in October 2005 is that “The Zionist occupying regime of Jerusalem should cease to exist in the page of time”. He has also specifically said in very clear terms that “Israel should go through a regime change in the same way that the Soviet Union went through a regime change.” The Soviet Union of course went through a bloodless regime change. Ayatollah Khamenei, who has the final say on any major state and foreign matter, issued a statement, after the mistranslation of Ahmadinejad, saying that Iran has not and will not threaten any country but that it will defend itself against any aggression. Of course none of this is ever really reported in the western media.

In contrast to Khamenei’s statement that rules out any threat by Iran against other countries, the Israeli and US leaders have not just called for a regime change in Iran but have publicly threatened, in violation of the UN charter, to launch an air assault on Iran and have been actively planning a regime change by covert military operations inside Iran to foment ethnic violence and unrest in the country.

It was foolish to organise the Holocaust conference in Tehran; it played right into the hands of warmongers in Israel and Washington. However its objective was not to deny the Holocaust but to investigate how it has been abused to justify the atrocities committed by Israel against Palestinian people.
http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/1623